CONTACT, a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week crisis hotline

Other battles wait at home
Monday, December 03, 2007
BY GREG VELLNER
Special to the Times
Home sweet home isn't a reality for some returning U.S. soldiers, say local experts working to reverse "an emerging issue" of suicide among troops.

"The real tragedy is when young people survive over there in the military and come home and have major difficulties re-entering civilian life or during the time between deployments," says Eleanor Letcher, executive director of CONTACT of Mercer County. "It's at that point that some of them are taking their own lives."


According to the Veterans Affairs Department, there were at least 283 suicides among veterans who left the military between the start of the war in Afghanistan on Oct. 7, 2001, and the end of 2005. The Army said its suicide rate in 2006 rose to 17.3 per 100,000 troops, the highest in 26 years of record-keeping. In October, two recently returned Marines one from New Jersey, the other from Bucks County committed suicide.

In response, CONTACT, a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week crisis hotline, is establishing an outreach program specifically for returning veterans and their families. The "It's About Hope" program is a first in 31 years for CONTACT and could be one of the first in the state.
click post title for the rest

Terror by degree in PTSD

I've posted about virtual reality therapy in the past but hesitantly. I think we all need to stay open to new ideas. The problem I had with it has been pointed out on this article.

There are different levels of this wound, just as their are burns by degrees, there are PTSD wounds by degrees. Some veterans find they just need a little reassurance to get through this and begin to heal, while others, again as pointed in article, as well as countless times on this blog, some go into deeper wounds.

My husband is in the 90% range. Like most Vietnam veterans, they didn't receive any help for a decade or more. For him it was over 20 years after his return. There are things he can tolerate but many more he cannot. To this day, he has not been able to go to the Vietnam Memorial Wall, but we do go to the traveling walls. Even they cause him distress.

Knowing Jack, knowing veterans from all across the country, this article points out the problems with virtual reality therapy. They need to know what levels are helped and what levels are harmed before they go off and do this as a one size fits all cure. For some it may help but for others, it is just terror by degrees.


PTSD: VA's Current Snow Job
Dr. Phillip Leveque Salem-News.com
Phillip Leveque has spent his life as a Combat Infantryman, Physician, Toxicologist and Pharmacologist.
US Marines. Photo: NATO
(MOLALLA, Ore.) - I had the dubious experience to watch and listen to the VA's new treatment for PTSD, "virtual reality", on ABC local news in Portland, Oregon. I was both fascinated and outraged.
Two doctors were directing the "experiment" of treating soldiers with "terror movies". One was Capt. Greg Reger, a psychologist who was manning the computer/player. The other was a civilian, Dr. Miles McFall of Seattle, Washington. It wasn't stated if he was a physician. He told the news reporter he was an expert on PTSD.
With the VA and the Army both admitting their treatment of PTSD veterans was a colossal failure, I can't imagine any doctor admitting he was involved in the colossal failure of the treatments.
go here for the rest
http://www.salem-news.com/articles/december032007/ptsd_120207.php

Excessive forces cases often full of ambiguity

Excessive forces cases often full of ambiguity
Personal problems sometimes collide with pressures of job
By J.J. Stambaugh (Contact)
Monday, December 3, 2007

Excessive force cases aren't usually the result of bad cops looking for people to abuse, officials say.

Most of the time, they are the result of complex circumstances that may include frightening encounters with suspects and officers who are wrestling with serious personal problems that are in turn sometimes the product of job-related

In late 2004, for instance, then-Knoxville Police Department officer Harry McGuffee was - by his own account - a disaster waiting to happen.

A former U.S. Marine Corps drill sergeant from Mississippi, McGuffee joined KPD in 1999 and quickly built a solid record of accomplishments, working closely with federal authorities intent on combating inner-city violence and taking part in a number of high-profile arrests.

But things started to go awry when his father was murdered by two black suspects in July 2004 in Florence, Miss. He and his wife also were dealing with marital problems, and as time crept by, his performance began to deteriorate.
click post title for the rest

First let me say right now that if they are under stress, they should be taken off the street and given whatever they need to recover so they can go back to work and not "spaz out" on others. I really suggest you read the rest of this article.

With that out of the way, I want to remind you that while there is a mountain of evidence of PTSD in police, firemen, as well as other emergency responders, we still question the same evidence in combat troops. Why? When they are sent into combat, their traumas are not isolated, or once in a while. They are constant.

I want to stop reading blogs with a set agenda to dismiss all evidence of this wound. They are humiliating themselves by attacking our troops instead of helping them. When they dismiss evidence, studies and reports, they are in fact attacking the people we count on most in this country. Our military men and women, our police, fire fighters, emergency responders, all are necessary to our survival. Because of this we need to take care of them when their minds and bodies pay the price of service to us. PTSD can strike in a traumatic event, yet these people go through them over and over again. Treat them early and treat them all with all they need.kc

Blood Brothers part two:‘I’ve seen enough. I’ve done enough.’

‘I’ve seen enough. I’ve done enough.’

For many in Charlie 1-26, the worst was still to come
By Kelly Kennedy - Staff writer
Posted : Sunday Dec 2, 2007 16:36:55 EST

Every time they learned to evade the insurgents’ methods of attack, the insurgents changed their methods. For the first five months, the Iraqis hit Charlie Company with snipers and firefights.

“I can’t even tell you how many bullet rounds I heard popping off my gunner’s turret,” Staff Sgt. Robin Johnson said. But after the unit lost Staff Sgt. Garth Sizemore to a sniper’s bullet Oct. 17, 2006, as he patrolled on foot, the soldiers learned to stand behind vehicles, not to stand in hallways or doorways, to watch the rooftops.

For several months after they arrived in Baghdad in August 2006, Charlie Company stayed at Combat Outpost Apache in the insurgent stronghold of Adhamiya only while they conducted day patrols. When they rotated to the night shift, they stayed at Forward Operating Base Loyalty and drove the 45 minutes into Adhamiya. At Loyalty, they could go to the gym, the store and the air-conditioned dining facility with its five flavors of Baskin Robbins ice cream and all-you-can-eat buffets. Apache, with only one building for the American soldiers, offered little but the safety of a shorter drive.

But when Sgt. Willsun Mock died five days later after his Humvee triggered a roadside bomb during the trip to Adhamiya, the company commander moved his men to COP Apache permanently.
go here for the rest
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2007/12/bloodbrothers2/

Sammantha Arlene Owen Ewing after Walter Reed a casket

From the Washington Post report on Army 1st Lt. Elizabeth Whiteside. Yet one more death that did not have to happen. One more soldier gone.

Tom Whiteside comforts his daughter at the funeral of Sammantha Owen-Ewing, a soldier who hung herself last week. Whiteside and Owen-Ewing were friends on Ward 54 at Walter Reed.
Owen-Ewing lost all her medical benefits when she left the Army earlier this year.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/photo/
gallery/071130/GAL-07Nov30-95823/index.html


Ewing, Sammantha Arlene (Owen)


Sammantha Arlene Owen Ewing, 20, passed away Monday, Nov. 26, 2007, in Pawtucket, R.I. Sammantha was born in Orem, Utah, on Dec. 7, 1986, to Samuel and Linda Greene, and later adopted by Jason and Diana Owen. She graduated from Box Elder High School in 2005. She married Scott Ewing on June 12, 2007. Sammantha pursued her desire to work in the medical field while in the Army. She planned to continue her educational goals while also working as an EMT in Rhode Island. Sammantha was adventurous. She loved to travel and enjoyed learning from each new experience. Sammantha loved roller coasters, collecting seashells at the beach, photography, scrap booking, painting and beading. Her greatest joy was spending time with her siblings, Rebekah, Michael, Alexxa and Mookey. Sammantha was sweet, thoughtful and loving. She brought joy to the lives of those around her. We were blessed to know Samm and we will miss her very much. A funeral will be held at 10 a.m. Saturday, Dec. 1, 2007, at the Bothwell LDS chapel. Friends and family may call from 8:45 to 9:45 a.m. prior to the funeral. Interment is at Springville Evergreen Cemetery.
http://www.legacy.com/HJNews/Obituaries.asp?Page=SearchResults&DateRange=Today&Product=0
Why is this still happening? How many other deaths not counted? How many other born heroes need to die from this wound that do not need to die?

PTSD wounded by degrees

"It's a disgrace," said Tom Whiteside, a former Marine and retired federal law enforcement officer who lost his free housing after his daughter's physical wounds had healed enough that she could be moved to the psychiatric ward. A charity organization, the Yellow Ribbon Fund, provides him with an apartment near Walter Reed so he can be near his daughter.

'A Soldier's Officer'

By Dana Priest and Anne Hull
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, December 2, 2007; Page A01

In a nondescript conference room at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, 1st Lt. Elizabeth Whiteside listened last week as an Army prosecutor outlined the criminal case against her in a preliminary hearing. The charges: attempting suicide and endangering the life of another soldier while serving in Iraq.

Her hands trembled as Maj. Stefan Wolfe, the prosecutor, argued that Whiteside, now a psychiatric outpatient at Walter Reed, should be court-martialed. After seven years of exemplary service, the 25-year-old Army reservist faces the possibility of life in prison if she is tried and convicted.
click post title for the reet
I know I posted about case yesterday but I was reading the Washington Post and saw this part. It's in bold above. Is the military really treating the PTSD wounded as if they do not need their families as much as when they have a wound to the body? Is this really what they think?
PTSD wounded by degrees according to who? Who decided PTSD wounded didn't need their families near them? Who came up with this rule treating PTSD combat veterans as second class wounded?

This is outrageous. When they are wounded by trauma they need all the support they can get, not isolated from their families or subjected to filthy living conditions. How can the DOD get away with this? How long has this been going on? For them to dismiss the fact the families also need support and knowledge to prepare them for the veteran returning home is a wound to the family as well. Lord I find it astonishing they have learned so little about taking care of the wounded. Will they ever get any of this right?kc

“Thirty-one guys of 100 were on anti-depressants by the end,” Charlie Company

“Thirty-one guys of 100 were on anti-depressants by the end,” Hoffman said. “We kind of pushed it a little. We stretched it because that’s what they’re doing in the civilian world.”

The meds, he said, helped. After seeing five men killed and 22 wounded in one day, Hoffman himself went on Celexa after being diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. When he stops taking it, he said, his own anger bubbles to the top. But with it, he feels calm.

Getting the pain out in the open

Debriefings, therapy help soldiers grieve

Posted : Sunday Dec 2, 2007 16:44:43 EST

After an improvised explosive device demolished a 30-ton Bradley, killing six men, Chaplain (Capt.) Ed Choi gathered the men of Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment, for a Critical Incident Stress Debriefing.

When a unit experiences a catastrophic event, a chaplain or mental health professional talks them through what they’ve experienced in the belief that reliving the event right away will help them deal with it better later. The debriefings also help chaplains discern which soldiers may need more attention.

“At first they’re hesitant, and then everyone starts talking,” said Maj. Scott Riedel, brigade chaplain for 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, to whom Charlie Company was attached when the June 21 tragedy occurred. “It may seem cruel, but in all honesty, they’re all thinking about it anyway. We are the healthy way of getting this out.”

Chaplains perform the debriefing, but Riedel said it’s more of an additional duty than part of their religious duties.

“We don’t pray before and we don’t pray after,” he said. “It’s just the chaplain who does the CISD.”

Some chaplains perform an immediate “diffusing” session — within hours of an incident — that consists of just a quick “what happened,” with no major detail.

“I don’t think diffusings work as well,” he said. “Their minds are not there — they’re not ready. You have to give them one day to grieve.”

go here for the rest
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2007/12/bloodbrothersside2/

Tyler Curtis survived bullets and bombs but could not survive the wound of his mind

PTSD blamed in former soldier’s suicide

The Associated Press
Posted : Sunday Dec 2, 2007 15:17:40 EST

LIVERMORE FALLS, Maine — When serving in Iraq, Tyler Curtis survived bullets and bombs. But once he got home, he couldn’t escape the emotional wounds he suffered.

Curtis, 25, took his own life on Thanksgiving morning, three months after returning to Maine following his 2006 discharge from the Army.

Curtis was unable to go on after Iraq, his sister, Gretchen Errington, said in a letter that was read to mourners who filled a funeral home last week to say goodbye.

“He served his country and ended up paying the ultimate price,” Errington wrote in the letter, which was read by a friend because she was too distraught to speak.

In the months after his return from two tours of duty, Curtis had grown inward and sad. He talked about his desire to return to Iraq and his grief for the families of those he may have killed.

Two weeks before his death, he told his former wife, Randi Sencabaugh, that it wasn’t the fact that he had to shoot people that bothered him most, the Sun Journal of Lewiston reported.

“It’s the fact they had a brother or a sister,” she remembered him saying. “I can’t imagine somebody — my sibling or my parents — dying.”
go here for the rest
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2007/12/ap_soldiersuicide_071202/

Why do we still call it a non-combat death? Would they have after trauma stress if they did not go into combat? Would their minds be wounded if they did not endure the horrors of combat? I still to this day cannot figure out why the combat veterans with PTSD are not awarded the Purple Heart? It is a wound. This wound, so insidious, latches hold of them and drags them into the abyss where hope is as elusive as the enemy they once tried to find.

The darkness of humanity exposed to trembling eyes. Stench penetrates their nose embedding in their mind, waiting to awaken when they feel they are safety out of danger. Visions slumber in the stillness until they come back with horrific hauntings of vengeance. The crime committed was the audacity to survive.

So the stalker claims its prey. This stalker does not strike the weak, but lashes out at the compassionate. It does not stalk the coward, but embraces the courageous as a worthy opponent. The only weapon in the human arsenal is hope. The hope of healing. The hope of becoming alive again.

Too many cannot do more than see hope exists but cannot reach it in time. How many more will we let slip away to this enemy? We lose more after combat than we do during it. This enemy cannot be defeated by more violence or more fueling of hatred. It can only be defeated by knowledge, compassion and mercy. kc

Injured without scars : The hidden wounds of battle from traumatic brain injury, PTSD

Injured without scars : The hidden wounds of battle from traumatic brain injury, PTSD
1A
Pamela E. Walck Sunday, December 2, 2007 at 12:30 am (see enhanced version)

Laboran Pickens sits inside the busy Savannah coffeehouse.

He flinches every time the grinders whine so strangers can walk away with frothy, caffeinated beverages.

He looks nervous. He assures his company he's fine.

He's on medication from Georgia Regional Medical Center.

It helps, but not always.

The Iraq nightmares still come, medicine or not.

Sometimes the spell is prompted by a loud noise or errant thought. It makes him space out. He moves like he's in a dream. He often disappears from his Hinesville home, sometimes for hours.

His wife spends those hours frantic, wondering where he is. She worries each time will be his last. That he won't come back to her and their three children.

He returns, but remembers nothing.

At 30, he is a shell of the man he once was.


'Signature wounds'

It is estimated that up to 20 percent of the 1.5 million men and women who have served in Afghanistan and Iraq since America's War on Terror began may suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder or traumatic brain injuries, according to the Defense and Veteran Brain Injury Center, which is part of the Walter Reed Medical Center.

And a 22-month study by Veterans for America of all soldiers returning to Fort Carson, Colo., found more than 17 percent of all servicemen and women who had deployed from the installation had some form of traumatic brain injury.

Veterans organizations fear that thousands of soldiers are living undiagnosed.

Many have left the military. Or, like Pickens, were asked to leave.

They carry invisible scars.
go here for the rest
http://www.savannahnow.com/node/407817

Army to soldier, go to jail if you try suicide and fail

Under military law, soldiers who attempt suicide can be prosecuted under the theory that it affects the order and discipline of a unit and brings discredit to the armed forces. In reality, criminal charges are extremely rare unless there is evidence the attempt was an effort to avoid service or endangered others.

Army charges Iraq vet over self-inflicted gun wound
Despite years of exemplary service, Lt. Elizabeth Whiteside, right, could face prison over a mental breakdown in Iraq.

Army charges Iraq vet over self-inflicted gun wound
By Dana Priest and Anne Hull
The Washington Post


Despite years of exemplary service, Lt. Elizabeth Whiteside, right, could face prison over a mental breakdown in Iraq.

MICHEL DU CILLE
Now a psychiatric outpatient at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, Lt. Elizabeth Whiteside, 25, is undergoing a court-martial and faces the possibility of life in prison if she is tried and convicted.
WASHINGTON — In a nondescript conference room at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, 1st Lt. Elizabeth Whiteside listened last week as an Army prosecutor outlined the criminal case against her. The charges: attempting suicide and endangering the life of another soldier while serving in Iraq.
Her hands trembled as Maj. Stefan Wolfe, the prosecutor, argued that Whiteside, now a psychiatric outpatient at Walter Reed, should be court-martialed. After seven years of exemplary service, the Army reservist faces the possibility of life in prison if she is tried and convicted.
Military psychiatrists at Walter Reed who examined Whiteside, 25, after she recovered from her self-inflicted gun wound diagnosed her with a severe mental disorder, possibly triggered by the stresses of a war zone. But Whiteside's superiors considered her mental illness "an excuse" for criminal conduct, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post.
click post title for the rest

According to the report on suicides, there were over 900 others who seriously attempt suicide each year while serving. Did they arrest all of them? Did they put them all on trial for trying to take their own lives? Or did they do the right thing and look at the reason they tried to commit suicide? This is torture beyond belief and we are paying to prosecute them? That's right folks. Our money is paying to put them on trial instead of going to treat them for what their minds have to go through. Is this nation ever going to get totally serious about any of this or are we still going to allow for empty promises and claims with no connection to facts?